Facts

Turkey is known officially as the Republic of Turkey and is classed as a Eurasian country. It has a land mass of 814,578 sq.km and stretches across the Anatolian peninsula in western Asia, to Thrace in the Balkan region of southeastern Europe.

By Mike Stock

The countries population is 62.7 Million with most concentrated in the Marmara, Aegean and the Mediterranean regions which are economically more developed.

Although Ankara is the capital, Istanbul is still the largest city and also the industrial, commercial, and intellectual centre of the country.

Turkey borders eight countries: Bulgaria, Greece, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Iraq and Syria.

Land mass and Geography
The country is dominated by the region of Anatolia, a high plateau area raising progressively towards the east and broken by the valleys and rivers which includes the Tigress and the Euphrates.

In the north, the Eastern Black Sea Mountains chain runs parallel to the Black Sea. In the south, the Taurus Mountains sweep down almost to the coast.

The country has the Mediterranean Sea and Cyprus to the south; the Aegean Sea and Archipelago to the west; and the Black Sea to the north.

Separating Anatolia from Thrace are the Sea of Marmara and the Turkish Straits (the Bosporus and the Dardanelles), which mark the border between Asia and Europe.

Turkey's coastline is more then 8,333 km long.

Climate
Because Turkey has such diverse regions, the country as a whole is affected by several differing climates, with the weather system on the coasts contrasting with that found in the interior. The Aegean and Mediterranean coasts have cool, rainy winters and hot, moderately dry summers.
On the whole, rainfall is less in the east of the country. The Black Sea coast receives the greatest amount of rainfall.

Language
Turkish is the official language of the country and it is related to the Uralic-Altaic languages spoken from Finland to China.
The language has undergone major reforms during the 20th century. Arabic and Persian scripts were used during the Ottoman Empire period, but a modified Latin-based alphabet, with some extra letters, was introduced in 1928.
The Turkish alphabet doesn't contain the letters "Q, W, X.
Most of the Kurdish minority speaks Kurdish which also has some common words with Turkish Language. Arabic is also spoken especially in the South eastern provinces. English is also becoming a popular foreign language.

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